As soon as we made the decision to postpone the Key Stage 2 Sports Day, I knew we would wake up to a sunny morning! To be fair, the top field is still wet underfoot and it would have been too dangerous to run the event (excuse the pun!), however, it is still slightly galling.

We had a similar situation with the ‘Villa’ (year 4 & 5 classrooms) and I blame them entirely for the current weather. The temperature in the building can rise considerably during the summer months and so we hired air conditioning units for Term 6. The day the units were installed saw a marked change in the weather, which has resembled the winter months rather than the anticipated tropical conditions.

Extending this logic, I am planning to order a large supply of umbrellas for the remainder of term on the basis that this might guarantee a run of good weather!

Green Fingers

The more observant of you may have spotted a group of children from SPS, ably assisted by Wendy Lissenden, in the Sevenoaks Chronicle and on social media. The group of Year 3 children supported a team from Southeastern Trains and B&Q in sprucing up the Sevenoaks Station garden. From the responses on Twitter, their efforts appear to have been appreciated by commuters. The next challenge will be to extend their ‘green fingers’ to the SPS grounds – a slightly bigger challenge!

Green Travel Award 2016

Sevenoaks Primary School has been awarded a Green Travel Mark in recognition of the work delivered by the school staff, children and parents to promote green travel during 2016. We have been given a rather nice certificate, which will be displayed proudly in the entrance hall.

Alan Duffy

SPSA Own Clothes Day – Friday 24th June

All children are welcome to come to school dressed in home clothes. The ‘fine’ for doing so is for members of FS/KS1 to donate a bottle for the Summer Fair. KS2 children can donate £2.00

Please note that both participation and contributions are entirely voluntary and that all children should not feel obliged to take part.

Ollie is a hugely popular figure here at SPS, and all those children who have participated in his classes have had fantastic fun!

The Queen’s 90th Birthday celebrations

The school very much enjoyed celebrating the Queen’s recent 90th birthday. There were two assemblies for both Phases 1 and 3 to highlight the big day to the children.

Some of our classes also chose to hold their own special events. Leopards Cub Class made an enormous ‘cake’ in their Mud Kitchen, and held a cream tea for the whole class on the top field, kindly catered for by Mrs Orton.

Class 2B spent time in ICT creating wonderful birthday cards for the Queen using Publisher. The children were encouraged to think creatively about what the Queen would like on her cards – corgis featured a lot!

Class 2C also made similar cards for the Queen, and held a celebration in class on Friday afternoon.

Happy Birthday, ma’am!

Chess – Kent Megafinals

Congratulations to Sam, James, Danny and Scarlet who all competed at the Kent Megafinals, held in Tonbridge on Saturday 4th June.

The Megafinal is part of the UK Chess Challenge which is an annual competition that attracts thousands of children from schools and clubs around the country. To qualify, the children need to have gained 17 points in the internal school competition that we held earlier in the year.

Sam and James both competed in the U11 Boys section against some very tough competition from around the county. They did really well and gained some great wins and draws, ending up with 3 and 2 points respectively.

A big well done to Danny who played in the U9 Boys and achieved an undefeated first place in the section with 6/6 wins. Scarlet also played some great chess and won the U7 Girls section with 4 wins out of 6.

Both Danny and Scarlet were delighted to win their sections and receive a trophy. They are now through to play at the Southern Gigafinals, which will be held in Reading on the 17/18th July.

Huge congratulations to all the children!

Parent Governor election

We are sorry to announce that, with immediate effect, Silvia Schwark has had to stand down as a Parent Governor. We would like to thank Silvia for all her help and advice both on behalf of the school and the Governing Body.

With two vacancies to fill and two candidates we can therefore inform you that Tim Emly and Rob Hartley are both elected unopposed and appointed as parent governors.

We would like to extend our congratulations to both candidates and welcome them to the Sevenoaks Primary School Governing Body.

Lost Property

Mrs Rowland and Mrs Evans have very kindly been regularly clearing through our ever-growing pile of lost property, labelling and returning all named items to their owners. Thank you both for your sterling efforts.

We do seem to have a rather eclectic collection of items that must be missed by someone, including a crutch, two shin guards, a football goalkeeper’s glove and an impressive looking stegosaurus (!) along with the usual misplaced school uniform.

Would anyone also like to claim any of these shoes? Their rather muddy condition would suggest they were from the Year 6 Blackland Farm trip.

Please do come any collect any items you believe to belong to your child from the Lost Property area, which can be found by the School Office.

Kent Assessment Test (11+) registration is now open

If your child is currently in Year 5 and you would like them to sit the Kent Grammar Test, you must register your child’s details by Friday 1st July 2016.

Please could parents email through a copy of their registration to manager@sevenoaks.kent.sch.uk in order for us to keep a records of all applications.

The Kent Test will take place on Thursday 8th September 2016.

Sevenoaks Tag Rugby Festival 2016

On Wednesday 25th May, two teams participated in the Sevenoaks tag Rugby Festival.

Team 1 Report by Peter - Y6

In the group stage Team 1 played Amherst 2, St Katharine’s and Seal.

We managed to win all of our opening games which saw us through to the knock out stages. We played Chevening in the quarter final which we won comprehensively! The semi-final brought us up against a tough St Thomas’ team. After a good match Sevenoaks came out on top.

This took us to the final! This was played against Lady Boswell’s. This was our toughest match so far, with tries being scored by both teams. In the last play Rhys made an epic interception, bursting through the Lady Boswell defence making the score 9-8. This meant Sevenoaks were the Sevenoaks Tag Rugby champions for the first time in 14 years and proudly received the Chris McCarron cup!

The team spirit throughout the festival was outstanding, with our members encouraging each other all the time even if the team was losing. The girls were fantastic! All three of them, year 4 students, showed no issue playing against year 5 and 6’s.

On Wednesday 25th, some children were specially selected to go to a Tag Rugby competition for Years 5 and 6. It was a close competition and all matches were always full of tension and suspense.

The matches were tough, everyone was up for the challenge and all the children tried their best.

Sadly the children were knocked out, by Seal , in the last few minutes of extra time, by a golden try. All the children scored at least one try and worked well together as a team to get lots of good results. They all supported each other throughout the tournament and were bonding well as a team.

Team2: Jessica, Amelia, Ben, Luca, Henry, Ethan, Scarlet

Spring Lightning Gym Competition

Congratulations to all the gymnasts who took part in the Lightning Gym Competition this Spring.

The gymnasts all performed their routines well with medal wins for:

Katie, Y6– silver medal

Emma, Y5 – gold medal

Annabel, Y1 – silver medal

Molly,Y4– silver medal

Emmie, Y3 – gold medal

This was a very large competition with gymnasts attending from schools all over the Sevenoaks area. Our gymnasts worked very hard on their routines and their composure and concentration during the competition was a credit to the school. We are very proud of them all!

Mrs Potter, Gym Coach.

Please help us win £5000 for the school library!

National Book Tokens are offering the opportunity for the school to win £5000 of book tokens. We need your help! To enter, simply complete the form using the link:

Mrs Hadfield, a parent at our school, holds Yoga classes at the Better Body Group in Sevenoaks (one of our sponsors).

Yoga is a great complement for many sports, to lengthen your stride if you are a runner, elongate the muscles for weight trainers or just to increase flexibility and quieten the mind!Tuesdays 9.30-10.30amBeginners welcomehttp://www.nationalbooktokens.com/schools